


The Homeworld Security Job

by Terapsina



Series: 'The Homeworld Security Job' (Leverage/Stargate) [1]
Category: Leverage, Stargate SG-1
Genre: 10 Years Post-Canon - Stargate SG-1, 5 Years Post-Canon - Leverage, Aliens Exist - Revelation Fic, Canon Crossover, Crew as Family, Crossover, Gen, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Save the World Recruitment, Team as Family, Word Of God Says Leverage and Stargate SG-1 Happens in Same Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-06 00:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11024808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terapsina/pseuds/Terapsina
Summary: “I don’t do freelance for you guys anymore.”“We’re hoping you’ll make an exception for this. It’s a matter of homeworld security.”orEliot Spencer is ten minutes away from closing the brewpub for the night when a four-star general dressed in civvies walks through the front door. It’d be fine if the general needed just him, unfortunately the Stargate Program has an urgent need for some trustworthy high class thieves.





	1. Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pearl9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearl9/gifts).



> First of all, HAPPY NAME DAY to my sister (a few days early, but she won't care), who argued me into finishing this story before starting to post it (you can all thank her).
> 
> Anyway, I've long since been excited about the fact that Leverage and Stargate SG-1 is supposed to be happening in the same universe. And it's always bothered me that I haven't gotten my hands on a really satisfactory crossover, now this story might not be IT, but it's my attempt at something worthwhile.
> 
> Oh and HUGE thanks to isagrimorie for beta reading this story for me. She really helped with a few of the details and QUITE a lot of the commas so if there's still mistakes, believe me they're mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now enjoy Vala's POV (because I couldn't possibly bring in a bunch of thieves without involving the thief that's already there (not that I'd want to, I've always loved Vala)).

  
  
  
  
  
  


Vala hasn’t seen these people all together in one place in almost two years, not since the last time that Jack managed to round them all up for one of his ‘no-fish’ fish trips.

But here they all are. Everyone’s slightly older, but the picture they make could almost have been taken a decade ago. All of them sitting around the briefing room table, dealing with the latest emergency.

“We could send a team to act as buyers,” Sam suggests.

Sure, General Landry’s gone, Sam sitting where he used to. And Muscles is wearing his Jaffa robes - which with every new visit seem to look more and more like the ones from that Tau’ri Star Wars play, she wonders if Jack’s noticed, and if she should give a hint if he hasn’t. - Daniel’s wearing an Atlantis patch instead of an SGC one on his shoulders, while Cam has a few more patches than he used to on his. And of course, Jack O’Neill is here too, which is always a pleasure, especially when Daniel’s nearby, he always looks so adorable fearful as if the universe will implode if he leaves them alone together for too long.

And Vala knows she looks as fabulous as ever.

“The Nova Lucian Alliance has bounties out on half our people, and we still don’t know which ones. We can’t send them into the belly of the beast.” Mitchell says, hands rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Vala knows he was just back from a three-day mission, which by the sound of it went just like old days.

“So we blow this thing up from the Hammond.” Jack offers, but Vala easily reads that he knows that’s not an option.

“We do not know where this auction is taking place.” Teal’c says from his position on Sam’s left. “And the Tok’ra and their host who brought us the information died from their wounds, so we cannot send them back.”

And that’s another thing. Who could have guessed the alliance between Jaffa and the Tok’ra would hold? Vala certainly didn’t. In fact, she lost that particular bet to Mitchell. But hold it has, and apparently the deep seeded hatred between them has, if not vanished, at least been lessened in the light of the protection they give each other now.

The Jaffa protecting the Tok’ra Homeworld, and the spies warning the warriors of any threats to Dakara. By this point, the relationship between them is even starting to prove to be closer than the one either of them has with Earth.

“Well we have to do _something_ , we can’t let this weapon, whatever it is, to be bought by _any_ of the people that would be interested in it,” Daniel says, sitting to her right.

“Mitchell’s right, the SG teams can’t go. We might have to borrow some people from Homeworld Security. Jack?” Sam asks.

“Almost none of them have off-world experience. And those who do are in the same boat as the teams.” Jack answers with a sigh. “Teal’c?”

Muscles twists his head in thought. “The Alliance is unlikely to sell this weapon to the Free Jaffa Nation, even were we able to afford it. And indeed I do not believe that we can. We are still a growing Nation, and can not afford to waste the few resources we have. But if you have need of our assistance, you will have it.”

Sam and Jack both nod in understanding.

They’re back to square one, but every face in front of Vala is set in determination as they just continue to work through the problem in front of them.

She’s missed these people. Not that she hasn't seen them lately, she is the one former member of SG-1 who still bounces around the two galaxies as needed after all. It fits her somehow. The freedom to move with two homes to land in.

And being the only person in two galaxies with both SGC and Atlantis patches on her shoulders does make a girl feel special.

She leans back in her chair and listens with half an ear as they try to figure out how to deal with the information the Tok’ra spy has brought them through the Free Jaffa Nation. Usually she’d have joined them, throwing in a few jokes here and there to ease the growing tension when it started looking like it would boil over, but this time she’s gonna have to say something none of them are going to like so she waits for a good moment to add in her own two bars of Naquadah.

“If we could infiltrate their operation, we could blow the thing up on the ground,” Cameron says.

Daniel’s growing more frustrated beside her, so she reaches to grab his hand in hers. She squeezes softly and sends him a look to calm him down, his lips twitch up a bit and he squeezes back, not pulling back from her the way he used to constantly back when Vala had just dropped into his life wearing a huge grin and a pair of bracelets.

They’ve come so far together it’s still hard to believe it. Sometimes she’s afraid to believe because that’s always when it all falls apart. That’s when she gets taken over by a Goa’uld symbiote or left behind by the Tok’ra to face Qetesh’s slaves, or impregnated by evil ascended beings.

Or has to watch Adria die, leaving behind only the Orici.

Believing in anything still terrifies Vala, she thinks it always will, but believing in Daniel and in the family she’s found with the Tau’ri has been the only times where the terror proved worth facing.

Wasn’t easy getting to this point though, she still remembers the fight she had with Daniel when he finally managed to argue his way into an Atlantis posting.

They had dealt with all their unresolved issues, - or so they’d thought, - finally in a place where they could put their pasts behind them and be together. And then he wanted to move, and Vala knew that what made her valuable to SGC was her understanding of _this_ galaxy in ways that would always be beyond them despite all their explorations.

She didn’t know the politics of Pegasus galaxy. What value would she have there? And to go there just for Daniel? No.

It took them a year of no communications whatsoever before they finally talked and worked themselves out - the ‘working themselves out’ part was pretty fun though.

And it turned out that Vala was quite good at finding ways to be an invaluable asset in unfamiliar places too.

Of the three galaxies she has lived in, Pegasus might even be her favorite. No Ori. No Goa’uld. An unfortunate number of Wraith sure, but they at least have the courtesy not to brainwash you or possess you before sucking you dry. You really had to appreciate the little things in life.

“We could offer them a trade,” Daniel says.

It’s nice being here with all of them.

“Against what? We don’t have anything they want.” Sam answers.

She kinda wishes this reunion took place under better circumstances though.

“We could-” Daniel starts.

“It’s not going to work.” Vala finally interrupts. They can come up with the best plan and it won’t matter because this once the galaxy-wide fame the Tau’ri have earned works against them.

“If you have an idea, Vala, I’m all ears. But right now this is all we’ve got.” Sam snaps looking tired, but immediately winces and sends her an apologetic look. Vala gets it, being the commander at this particular place is probably one extended headache after another, she remembers Landry’s moods plummeting any time there were more than four emergencies a day too. And this one has the potential to be cause for at least ten. Especially because they know practically nothing, just enough information to get everyone in a right state of emergency scrambling.

She still decides a shopping trip is in order as soon as this latest disaster is dealt with. Sam clearly needs a break. Or a vacation. She wonders if she can get away with kidnapping an SGC commander for two weeks to some sunny, hot place with lots of half naked men to give them massages. She’ll have to think on it.

First, though there’s business.

“It won’t work,” Vala repeats herself. “Not unless you get someone new. Because Cam is right, infiltration is the only chance we have. We have to get into that auction, but you can’t send any of the SG teams. If they don’t get made as soon as they show their faces and get matched to the Alliances ‘kill on sight’ list, they’ll get spotted when they open their mouths.”

“Vala-” Mitchell tries to interrupt but quiets under Vala’s glare.

“I could maybe do it if I had six other Vala’s with me, and none of us looked like me, but-.”

“For the last time, we had to trade the Asgard cloning technology away, Vala,” Daniel tells her in a long-suffering way and then immediately blushes under the looks the others send him. Vala grins without shame, a girl has a right to enjoy herself.

She takes a moment away from the seriousness of the situation to send a pleased smile at Jack for his quickly raised thumbs up but then gets back to her point.

“I know, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that no one at _SGC_ can go, you need _thieves_ for this mission. And this is a big planet, you guys _must_ have some good ones between those 7.5 billion people. You get me a few of them and I can teach them how to play a wealthy minor Goa’uld long enough to get in and out. But I can’t teach someone to be a good enough liar to not get caught. Not with the time we have here.”

“What do you want us to do, Vala? Grab a bunch of criminals off the street and hope they don’t decide that stealing a Stargate and selling _that_ to the highest bidder instead would be a more lucrative business plan?” Cameron asks.

Vala draws in a deep breath, but before they can start squabbling there comes an uncertain cough from the chair on Jack’s right. Everyone turns to Walter who’s already raised an uncertain hand. She’d almost forgotten he was here too, which she knows is how he likes it, so whatever he has to say is probably important.

“Sirs. Actually, there might be someone you could use. You’re aware that we keep open, up-to-date files on everyone who’s ever worked at the SGC or Homeworld Command, yes?” He looks around the faces, apparently waiting for a response.

“Indeed we did not,” Teal’c informs him.

“There’s a file on someone who used to work for us as a retrieval specialist. I believe General Carter has met him.” Walter starts rifling through his folders, finally stopping to pull out four copies. He passes two of them to Jack and Sam and slides the other two to Vala and Daniel, and Teal’c and Cam to share.

Jack doesn’t open his copy at first, just sends Walter a sideways look of suspicion. “You _sure_ you’re not psychic, Walter?”

“Yes sir,” Walter replies, his face blank. “But I like to be well prepared.”

“No kidding.” Jacks says eyeing the stack of folders remaining in Walter’s hands. Vala wonders how many of the other files are the sort Walter brings on briefings with the expectation that he might maybe need them.

The plain cover of the file holds only the seal of SGC and a name.

Not wasting any more time Vala opens her copy to the first page to find out what the Homeworld Security paper rats have to say about one Eliot Spencer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is going to be 3 chapters and a drabble length epilogue. I'll update on Saturday, Monday and then Tuesday.
> 
> Now please tell me what you think because honestly I don't remember the last time I was this nervous about a story (and I'm basically always nervous about posting my stories).
> 
> Up next the story really starts with the POVs of Eliot, Jack, Hardison and Parker (the next two chapters will be longer, but this was the best place to cut this one so...)
> 
> Edit: I kinda forgot that there would be a bit of cursing from a character, so had to raise the rating sliiightly to stay on the safe side. Sorry about that.


	2. Three Days Later at a Brewpub in Portland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know America is like 10 hours behind from where I am, but it's almost 9 AM on this sunny Saturday here so I'm just going post it now.

Eliot’s standing behind the bar of the brewpub cleaning the glasses around ten minutes before closing when an Air Force general steps through the front door, - he’s not in uniform and doesn’t really walk like a general, but the rank is obvious, the female officer’s respectful stance beside him distinctive and unmistakable, - the officer stays by the entrance while the general walks inside. Eliot looks down to Hardison’s monitors hidden behind the counter and sure enough, there are two more male officers also in civvies outside and a government issue vehicle waiting by the sidewalk.

The pub’s almost empty, he sent the employees home almost fifteen minutes ago. The only people left is him and two customers in the back.

He thinks about alerting Parker and Hardison to the developing situation by turning the label of the fake bottle towards him - Hardison couldn’t resist and Eliot couldn’t fault the paranoia, - but for the moment decides to wait and see what this is about.

The General sits down a few chairs down from where Eliot’s standing and sends him a close mouthed smile paired with a tiny eyebrow wiggle - the kind he’s seen Nate do when playing one of his obnoxious personas, except this man conveys humor instead of sleaze with his. Other than that though, the silver-haired man ignores him.

Taking the hint Eliot turns his attention to the customers, a married couple in the back that have been talking in whispers and absorbed in each other the entire night. He sighs, loathe to interrupt the two women and their anniversary date, but this looks important and though it doesn’t look like it’ll turn ugly at the moment, it’s still better to get the civilians out of any potential lines of fire.

He throws the towel over his shoulder, puts down the glass and walks around the counter toward the back.

Then he puts on his most charming smile and draws the women’s attention.

“I’m sorry, but we’re about to close.”

The women blink up at him like they’d completely forgotten how late it’s gotten. Then the sweet-faced blonde woman further from him lights up her phone and smiles back an embarrassed sort of smile when she sees the time.

Her dark-haired somewhat familiar looking wife though is looking at him suspiciously, her eyes moving from him to the general.

Eliot’s smile doesn’t waver.

“An old friend.” He explains in a dry tone and then rolls his eyes for good measure. The woman relaxes, though not all the way.

“How much do we owe you?” The embarrassed one asks.

“On the house. I hope you enjoyed your anniversary here.” He says and reminds himself to put a twenty in the tip jar for Monty, the women have been sitting at one of the kid’s tables.

“How did-?” The suspicious one starts and then glares lightly at her wife for the playful arm pinch she’d just gotten.

“Be nice Ashley!”

“I’m totally nice.” Ashley hisses back, but he sees the corners of her mouth pulling up, Eliot for the moment forgotten.

“I know the signs. And you remind me of two friends of mine.” He’s not even lying, the way they’ve been looking at each other the entire night have all the hallmarks of Nate and Sophie.

“Do you want me to call you two a cab?”

“No, thank you. We haven’t really been drinking.” Eliot nods, knowing it to be true, then leads them to the door when they grab their stuff, - they send curious but not alarmed looks at the officer they walk past on their way out, - and he waits, keeping the door open until he sees them get into their car safely before letting it close.

Normally this would be when he’d lock behind him, but he knows that no officer worth their salt would allow a general to be locked inside a building with someone that might prove to be a threat and only one person for backup. He leaves the door alone and goes back to his spot behind the counter.

“What’s this about General-”

“O’Neill. But call me Jack.”

Shit. He starts cursing inside his head. He hasn’t had anything to do with Stargate program in years, but though he’s never met this man before he knows the name. _Everyone_ in the program knows the name.

“I don’t do freelance for you guys anymore.”

“We’re hoping you’ll make an exception for this. It’s a matter of homeworld security.”

Eliot grinds his teeth in frustration. He knows he can’t say no to that, and the general probably knows it too if the sparkle of humor in his eyes is any indication.

“When do you need me?” He’s going to have to come up with a pretty good excuse for vanishing, especially if he doesn’t want Hardison to start snooping.

The humor leaks from General O’Neill’s eyes leaving him looking grave and just a little bit apologetic.

“Yeah, ‘bout that.” O’Neill stops and hums under his breath for a moment. “We kinda need that whole gang of yours here. There’s this… _thing_.”

“No!” Eliot says immediately. He’s not bringing his family into this. Protecting them from goons with guns is one thing, he can do that, he knows he’ll be able to take the hit if it ever comes to that. He can’t guarantee their safety if they get read into this. There would be too many variables. Too much could go wrong. And he made a promise.

For a moment he thinks about vaulting over the counter and throwing the man out on his ass.

The guileless look drops from the general’s eyes for a short second, replaced by a sharpness that speaks of O’Neill’s very long list of commendations and the ways he’d earned them. The man might be in his mid-sixties now, but he is not a helpless mark.

Eliot’s eyes skim to the doorway and he reminds himself that the officer there would probably shoot him before he was even halfway to the general too.

“I’m sorry Spencer, I really am, but we need you all. And if this goes wrong your team is going to be dead either way. And the rest of the Earth with it.”

“There are other-”

“There are other criminals, but criminals that fight on this side of the line? You guys are a rare species, Spencer, there’s no one else as good as you that isn’t in it for the money. And trusting mercenaries with this would be as smart as expecting an Ancient to give you a straight answer. You know we can’t take that chance.”

He almost doesn’t care. Unfortunately, he still has Nate’s voice in his head on occasions like this, urging him to do the right thing. Of course, there are always still traces of Moreau’s lessons too, and those whisper at him to tell O’Neill to fuck off. He could grab Alec and Parker, get Sophie and Nate from their third attempt at retirement - previous experience tells him they’re maybe gonna last a month or so longer before giving up again, - and steal a ship to abandon the place before whatever’s coming gets here.

Unfortunately, he’s long since decided to never listen to the lessons left by Moreau. And other than Parker none of his people would go anyways - maybe not even Parker, her instinct for survival might be stronger than the rest of theirs, but he remembers Parker in that cave on that snowy mountain, she would want to do the right thing here too. And she wouldn’t leave Alec.

And Hardison would want to fight.

So save for rendering his entire family unconscious and taking the choice out of their hands entirely, Eliot doesn’t have any kind of choice at all.

“Fuck you!” He says anyway, trying to ignore the voice of the soldier at the back of his head flinching, horrified at the lack of respect shown toward the high ranking Air Force General.

O’Neill just grins. Apparently used to the reaction.

Eliot stuffs a twenty in the jar by the cash register and then reluctantly sends a text to Hardison and Parker, finally alerting them to the situation. Well, he tells them that they have a new client. The details will have to wait until they get here.

—

Jack pushes two thick non-disclosure agreements towards the Green Beret’s friends. Since Walter’s suggestion he’s read both their files and isn’t surprised to receive back an aggressive glare from the thief who goes by Parker; nor a raised eyebrow from the hacker Alec Hardison, the kid isn’t bothering to hide amused scorn at signing a document for government secrets when he’s so much more used to just digging up those secrets himself.

Instead of reaching for the folders the black man continues playing with his phone.

They need thieves. Good ones. And Vala’s right, she alone wouldn't be enough for this one, especially since she’s in the same boat as the rest of them where recognizable faces are to be considered.

The crew working under the cover of Leverage International is their best shot - and if Walter’s files are right, these people are just what they need to deal with their latest galactic FUBAR. And the fact that Eliot Spencer had already worked for them before as a retrieval specialist just clinches the choice.

Speaking of, the man is standing in the corner of the room eyes on his team, face blank, but Jack can read the stress in his posture. These people are family to him, the same way Carter, Teal’c and Daniel will always be family to Jack, no matter how far and wide they’ve scattered in the last decade. It’s plain to see how much Spencer doesn’t like this.

Jack doesn’t like it either. He doesn’t want to bring in civilians into the mess that is the rest of the galaxy, he’d love to leave them to their illegal do-gooding, but he needs them so he tries not to let himself notice how young these two kids really are.

Younger than Carter and Danny were when SG-1 went on their first mission, if not by much. Not much older than Charlie would have been now.

Too young.

“You sure we can trust him?” Parker asks Spencer never taking her angry eyes off Jack. Vala Mal Doran has that same kind of eyes, so does some others he knows, himself included, he doesn’t want to guess why this girl has a look like the one he knows gets earned by people who have held a snake in their heads, a look that means they know what it’s like to not be in control of what happens to them or what they do.

Under her aggression though is a calculation that rather reminds Jack of himself a great deal. She’s plotting.

”Yeah,” Spencer growls from his corner. “They’re the good guys.”

“Good guys with ten kinds of protection on their mountain.” The hacker mutters never looking up from his phone.

Jack feels his own eyebrow raise in reaction, is the hacker seriously-

“Dammit, Hardison! You don’t hack a military outpost in front of a four-star general, what is wrong with you?” Eliot rushes forward and grabs the phone out of the other man’s hands.

“Hey!” The hacker yells indignantly. And Jack has an uncomfortable flashback of the dozen times he’s grabbed one of Danny’s books from out of his hands when he started looking too much like an insomniac. “Give that back.”

“Not until after the people that can arrest us for treason leave.” Spencer grounds out between his teeth, Jack hopes the man has a good dentist.

“They’re not going to arrest us.” Parker answers, she hasn’t looked away from Jack since they got here.

“Not as long as you sign those papers, no.” Jack answers and then very carefully does not wince at the implied ultimatum.

Because… it’s kind of true. This is a gamble, a rather risky one, and if this goes bad he might have to arrest them after all.

But he’d rather not, he’s starting to almost like them.

Parker’s head tilts sideways, the way a cat’s might. And her aggressive look goes sharp and seeking, then she reaches for the papers and starts flipping through them.

Damn. They’re gonna read the whole thing first, aren’t they?

He slumps back in his chair and sends a wide smile to Spencer. “You wouldn’t happen to have some beer while we wait?”

Eliot smiles back, for the first time this night entirely pleasantly. Jack grows suspicious immediately.

“Sure. You can have a taste of Hardison’s newest experimental masterpiece.”

Jack looks from Spencer’s grin to the quickly hidden mildly offended look on Alec Hardison’s face,

Still, he shrugs. Why not? How bad could it be?

—

Alec is pointedly not looking at either Eliot, - stealing one of his babies, the _nerve,_ \- or this General Jack O’Neill who had taken one sip of the brew of the gods, - _‘the gods, I say’_ , - and promptly started choking.

No appreciation for good taste.

And his fingers are already itching to go back to trying those firewalls. All he managed to dig up since being introduced to this general was that he’s working on some covert shit at Pentagon and Cheyenne Mountain. His records are clean only until his promotion to Colonel, - though there are some clear signs of black ops before too, - every promotion after however has a ‘classified’ sticker to it. Right up until he gets transferred to Pentagon as a general, but all his work continues to be blank.

And then he becomes a four-star general, which is curious because Hardison knows all the current four-stars, - it pays to keep away from them, - and a General Jack O’Neill isn’t on the list.

It’s enough to get a guy curious.

He has a feeling all the answers lie behind the firewalls of that mountain complex. Unfortunately, those firewalls are… well if they weren’t standing in his way he’d call them beautiful. As is, he hasn’t had such a challenge since he was just starting out.

And Eliot’s holding his cell hostage.

Which is just rude, especially considering he already seems to know whatever it is they’re supposed to sign the dotted line for to find out, - and the line is _actually dotted,_ what century are these government folks even from?

And oh yeah, don’t think Alec hasn’t noticed how there are only two confidentiality agreements here.

It rather feels a bit like cheating to just _sign_ for military secrets. But if his man Eliot is saying they have to, well he guesses he can make an exception this once.

Even if this whole thing is starting to piss him off a bit.

He follows Parker’s lead and grabs the papers for a throughout read.

He’s not stupid, he ain’t signing anything he hasn’t read first.

And he hopes they all know that he isn’t giving up on that mountain either, the code he saw in those split few seconds he managed to slip through the outermost layers of protection was completely alien to him, he _has_ to invite it for another dance.

—

Parker has a bad feeling about this. Eliot is acting like a cornered tiger, not pacing around the room only because it would reveal too much, but still coiled tighter than a compressed spring.

He’s not acting like he would if their new ‘client’ had threatened them, more like he’s feeling like he won’t be able to guard them against whatever this is all about. Eliot _needs_ to be able to know that he can protect them from any threat that shows its face, Parker knows that. It’s the same way Parker needs to know that she’ll always be able to create a way of escape for them. The same way Hardison needs to know that _he_ knows every possible thing that might come back to bite them so that he can create a way to deal with it before it’s even an issue.

She knows there are versions of those same needs in Sophie and Nate too.

And the fact Eliot is acting like that certainty is being pulled from under his feet is making Parker twitchy.

She’s gotten to the last few pages of the papers, and though everything looks to be on the up and up, she’s not sure if she actually wants to sign it if it’s making Eliot be so off his game.

She starts going through the mental steps of breaking into a Class III bank vault, timed to the count of her heartbeats to calm herself down before she does something stupid, like stick a fork in the general.

Luckily by the time she’s finished with the file she’s regained her equilibrium. She closes the document and looks sideways to share a look with Hardison, there’s a worried frown on his face too, but he shakes his head signaling that he didn’t see anything wrong with the papers either.

She looks back at the silver-haired general.

“We need a minute to talk this over. You can wait here till we come back.” Parker says barely covering up the snapping tone that wants to come out.

She and Alec stand up as one and walk into the back room. She doesn’t need to look to know Eliot’s following.

They close the door behind them and as soon as it clicks shut Hardison looses his feigned cool. Parker can’t really blame him, she’s not much more composed at the moment.

“What the hell is going on Eliot?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“That’s bull man. We’ve been a team for how long now? Ten years? I’m pretty sure we’re way past all the trust issues by this point.” Hardison’s starting to really look angry so Parker reaches for his shoulder to remind him not to say something they might all regret.

“No, I mean I _can’t_ tell you. This isn’t about trust, I signed one of those NDAs years ago, I’m not allowed to reveal that information to anyone who doesn’t already know.” Now Eliot is wearing his stubborn face.

“If they’re doing something hinky-”

“That’s my point, they’re not. They _are_ doing good work, and they’re keeping it secret for very good reasons.”

“Then why do you look like you want to grab us and run away?” Parker asks, finally fully identifying the looks he’s been sending them.

“Because I do,” Eliot admits. “But you’d never forgive me if I did after you find out what this is about.”

Parker nods to herself and then looks Eliot square in the eyes.

“Should we sign those papers?”

Eliot looks like he’s in pain at her question, she sees him clenching his fists before letting go with a long exhale as if he’s giving up something. “Yes.”

She looks at Hardison and finds him already nodding to her, so she guesses that’s that then.

“Give me Hardison’s cell,” Parker says reaching forward and motioning with her fingers for it. Eliot slowly extends it with a question on his face that she ignores for the moment.

She turns it on, quickly typing in Alec’s password and then scrolls through the contacts for Amy.

She feels a bit bad, it’s past 1 AM by this point, but this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had to call her this late.

She puts the phone to her ear and waits.

Amy’s sleepy and annoyed “What?!” is the first thing Parker hears through the line, followed by some sheets rustling as Amy probably tries to extract herself from the bed without waking her partner.

“Hey, Amy. Sorry if I woke you up, can you take care of the brewpub for us for the next few days?-” Eliot shakes his head at that and mouths ‘weeks’, Parker grimaces but corrects herself “-or weeks. An unexpected job’s come up.”

“Uhh… sure.” Amy mutters still sleepy but obviously more alert. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Parker answers and hopes she isn’t lying. “The client just came out of nowhere.”

“Anything we need to know?”

Parker hesitates for a moment, “No, not at the moment anyway.”

“Alright, I’m done with my latest commissions anyway, I can take over for a bit.”

“Thanks. Goodnight, Amy.”

“G’night.” Amy murmurs obviously halfway asleep again.

Amy’s been a good friend to them for the past few years. Almost but not quite part of the team, definitely part of the family, like Maggie - and hooking up the artist and the art expert was still one of Parker’s better ideas if she does say so herself.

They bring her in on a job now and then when they need an additional person for a grift, but they’ve mostly kept her clean(-ish). And they never bring her for anything that might be dangerous. So it’s probably better not to drag her into this, especially if it’s as bad as Eliot’s attitude makes it seem.

That taken care of she turns back to the room they left the general in, her arm’s going for the handle when Hardison’s voice stops her.

“Parker?” he whispers softly.

She looks up at him and the fear she reads in his eyes stops her breath for a moment. She pulls him in for a kiss in a blink and then wraps her arms around him, her cheek pressed against his warm shoulder.

“For luck?” He laughs shakily. She holds him more tightly as his arms encircle her in return.

“I’m not losing you. And you’re not losing me. And we’re not losing Eliot.”

“I can’t promise-” Eliot disagrees quietly from behind them.

“You can!” She opens her eyes and turns her head to glare at him. “None of us is allowed to die. You included.”

“Listen to Parker, man, she’s the boss.” Hardison backs her up and then grabs Eliot to pull him into the hug too. Parker can’t help rolling her eyes at the noise of fake protest Eliot lets out, like they can’t see the tiny smile he’s trying to hide from them.

—

The only time Jack's ever seen anyone write with the petulant insult of these Robin Hoods signing their NDAs, has been when he's at home relaxing on his couch - a nice cold _drinkable_ beer in hand - and watching Bart Simpson in front of his old friend, The Chalkboard.

It’s in the way Alec Hardison seems to lean back from the document as he writes and then drops the pen as soon as he’s done with the signature. And then of course Jack hears him mutter something that sounds an awful lot like ‘troglodytes’ too.

The thief Parker is more subtle, but not by much, she scrawls something that looks vaguely signature-like all the while glaring down in a way that makes Jack feel surprised the papers haven’t caught fire yet.

He’s so busy looking for potential smoke it takes him a moment to notice that his pen has vanished. How in the hell? He knows she’s good but he hadn’t actually looked away from her hands.

For one glorious moment he wishes he’d had a chance to set these people on Ba’al, what he wouldn’t have done for a front row seat of that, popcorn included.

Oh well, a daydream will have to do.

He shakes off the traces of the road his mind had wandered off on and starts grinning. Now he gets to have some fun.

He loves this part.

“Welcome to SGC. Great to have you with us,” Jack stands up not losing his grin and starts riffling through the pocket of his brown leather jacket for the satellite phone. “You will get a full debrief when we reach Cheyenne Mountain innnn…” he stretches out the ‘n’ as he brings the sat-phone up to his face and turns it on “…just a moment. Beam us up, Scotty!”

Normally they’d have just taken a plane to Colorado Springs, but they really are on a bit of a timetable, plus Jack finds it useful to find out how a person reacts to having their entire worldview shattered in one fell swoop.

There’s a bright light that’s so familiar as to be almost everyday by this point, the last thing he sees before Asgard beaming technology scoops them up is the hacker letting out a startled yelp, the former army spec-ops soldier spitting out one final curse word and the thief… actually the woman doesn’t seem to be impressed at all.

If Jack had time to feel disappointed he would be. As is that’ll have to wait until they get to their destination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Jack, you just couldn't help yourself.
> 
> Also I'm aware there's no way a four-star general would actually personally show up to recruit someone (especially if the people in question are uhm... well thieves and con artists), but I wanted it to be Jack, so lets just say that he really wanted to do it (maybe to look them in the eye, the guy's very intuitive he'd have probably been able to tell if they were the sort of people who'd use this for personal gain).
> 
> So, thoughts?


	3. One second later at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, this is the last chapter before the short epilogue.
> 
> Like the previous parts this too was beta-read by the brilliant isagrimorie, but after I was done I ended up changing as few paragraphs, so if the commas have gone nuts you can absolutely blame me.

Hardison is still blinking away the spots resulting from the blinding light when he notices that they’re no longer inside the brewpub.

Where they are is a plain room with a table containing two chairs on one side and one on the other. There are no windows and something about the air makes him think of underground, - which makes sense, Cheyenne Mountain is an underground military complex after all and… wait, no, what is he thinking, _none_ of this makes sense, a second ago they were in Portland, not Colorado Springs.

There’s no logically sound way for them to have changed locations.

The science of it alone is _centuries_ away. He knows he’s checked. Though apparently not well enough.

Okay! Okay. So he’s obviously been wrong. The science apparently works just fine. He can deal with this, he’s fine.

Wait, what was it this dude was saying just before what happened… happened?

“What exactly does SGC stand for?”

“Stargate Command.” the grinning old white man says like he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop on their heads - and by the by, if he hadn’t looked it up himself Hardison wouldn’t believe that this man is in the _military_ let alone a general in it.

Stargate. Star Gate. Gate of Stars. There’s just no way…

“Please tell me that’s just a code name you’re using.” Hardison almost pleads, he can deal with crazy super secret teleportation science, that’s pretty cool actually as long as he doesn’t think too much about how it was just used on him and Parker and Eliot - who he’s going to kill, he’s pretty sure, yeah, he’s almost definitely going to kill Eliot, - but a star-gate is another thing entirely and he doesn’t even want to begin to contemplate the consequences involved in that.

“Nope.” O’Neill answers, popping the ’p’ and then teetering back on his heels, hands in pockets.

“Oh,” Hardison mutters, his eyes already staring off into distance as he starts going through the available information. He pauses on Eliot’s overprotective, overwhelmingly reluctant mood. Goes back to all those top secret promotions of O’Neill’s. Considers the transportation method that got them here. And then lands on that single moment where he got through the stronger than usual, but not really all that extraordinary outermost layers of protection that were disguising the code underneath. The code that now that he thinks about it wasn’t based on any kind of human math or language that he knows of.

Oh, Jesus, holy hell and all their goddamned angels - _‘Sorry, Nana.’_

Hardison twists on his heels to stare at Eliot. His man doesn’t seem to quite be looking back.

“Eliot?” Hardison asks, as calmly as he can manage under the circumstances, his right hand grabbing blindly for Parker’s and squeezing. “Are the crazy people telling me that there are ALIENS?! And that you didn’t tell us about it?”

The tension in Eliot’s shoulders seems to increase at Hardison’s accusation, and he didn’t actually think that was possible.

He isn’t getting any other kind of response though and tries not to be too hurt about that. Eliot doesn’t do well with corners, Alec knows, it’s just that usually he doesn’t feel like he’s the guy putting Eliot in them.

But hell, he’s not going to be feeling guilty about this. If the ‘truth has been out there’ and Eliot - _Eliot_ \- didn’t tell them about it, he damn well has a right to be a bit mad about it.

Even if he’d maybe rather not know now too. His thoughts screech to a halt and he immediately snickers somewhat hysterically in the back of his head. Because yeah right, scratch that, he needs to know _everything_. When was first contact? How did it go? Who was involved? Are Americans the only ones that are in the know, because if yes, that’ll go to hell in a hand-basket so quickly it’ll give whiplash - maybe to the entire _planet_. Exactly what is a Stargate? An actual gate? A communications device? A transportation device? A species of alien? Is Stargate that bright light that dropped them here? Does that mean it could transport them even further than from Oregon to Colorado? Like a _different planet_ further? How many other planets can support life then? Are they going to meet aliens?

Oh, my god, _is_ he gonna be meeting aliens?

His eyes go back to the table in the middle of the room with its three chairs, their placement and two piles of thick folders waiting there. All his answers probably lie there, or at least a few of them, but he immediately gets stuck on the number of chairs here and leaves his questions waiting at the back of his mind. Somehow he doubts that Eliot’s going to be the one who’s going to give them what looks to be a briefing, so why isn’t Eliot getting a chair?

“Is Eliot going to be leaving somewhere?” Parker asks from beside him, obviously coming to the same conclusion as Alec and tugging on his arm to move them in front of their partner.

Hardison doesn’t resist, mad or not, - ALIENS!? - Eliot is family. Always.

“Yes, well, we thought it would be better if when we approach Nathan Ford and… Sophie Devereaux is the name she’s using I’ve been told? That Mr. Spencer is there as well.” Says a woman’s voice from what for the first time Hardison notices is an open doorway.

There is immediately something very no nonsense about her, but in that kind of confident manner that is excluded by Maggie in front of art people, not the kind that oozes out of Sterling when there are reporters to impress. Dressed in a very neat dark blue uniform, her hair blonde and cut short, her posture straight and very certain, she at once reads to him as in charge. The two-star patches on each of her shoulders enforce that idea neatly of course.

There’s another woman beside her, leaning seemingly unconcerned against the wall by the door. In contrast to the General, her hair is long, dark and held back in a tight ponytail, her face carefully blank under the thin frames of her glasses. There are no patches on her green coveralls other than the ones proclaiming her as part of SGC.

He notices the clothing seems to be a size too big for her but puts the observation aside for the moment.

“Major General Samantha Carter.” The first woman says with a smile that fits her face, though Hardison can’t help note that it doesn’t reach all the way to her eyes, not in a dishonest way, but there’s well-hidden exhaustion there that is obviously having an affect. She shakes Parker’s hand and then Alec’s and nods at Eliot who has, yes, definitely gone in full ‘higher ranked officer in the room’ mode in a way that he didn’t seem to with Jack O’Neill.

Hardison guesses that this means he’s actually met Samantha Carter before. Maybe she was in charge whenever it was that Eliot worked here.

_‘-Eliot worked here.’_

Hardison’s heart sort of stops and then picks up its pace significantly. His mind goes through to the end of that thought; the military in charge of a secret project that involves aliens, quickly connects with all the reasons why they’d need to involve _Eliot_ in such a project, Eliot who is smarter than he likes to pretend but neither a scientist nor a diplomat. Eliot who is very very good at three things: cooking so expertly Gordon Ramsey might cry tears of joy; fighting like a cornered mama bear-wolf-tiger-insert-your-choice-of-apex-predator; and though he doesn’t like to think about it: killing.

And somehow Hardison doesn’t think the US military hired Eliot to _feed_ the aliens so there is only really one conclusion to draw here.

And now Hardison and Parker have signed non-disclosure agreements that have bound them to keep what is clearly the best-hidden secret on the planet. And soon Sophie and Nate will apparently be signing those documents too.

But they’re _thieves_ , the best thieves sure, and working as white hats, yeah, but what are they _doing_ here?

Suddenly Parker’s read on Eliot looking like he wanted to grab them both and run feels a lot less like a trivial detail.

—

Though the arrival of General Samantha Carter had somewhat eased the tension in Eliot - he’s worked with her before, though she was still a colonel at the time, - her words concerning Nate and Sophie racked that tension right back up.

“General.” Eliot starts, trying to figure out the most respectful way to ask if they really need to involve the last two members of this family. Eliot is good at what he does, the best, but as the growing number of old injuries have started to remind him lately, he’s getting old for this life. And he’d take any bullet that came for them without hesitation, but bullets come in straight trajectories and he remembers this place, nothing here comes from where you expect it or travels in a way that can be predicted.

Guarding two people here would be a stretch, guarding four might be too much even for Eliot.

And that’s if Carter doesn’t need to send them off-world.

“I’ve been shown your files, Spencer. We’re going to need all of you.” General Carter’s voice is firm, but then her eyes soften and he glimpses the soul under the two silver stars. “We will protect your people, you know that we will do everything to keep them safe for as long as they’re here, whether they agree to help us or not.”

“They don’t have to agree,” Eliot says back. They’re civilians, even Eliot really, none of them can be ordered to do this job.

“No, of course not. But I’ve _read all your files_.” Carter repeats herself, putting weight on the words. “Do you think any of them will say no? Will you?”

He clenches his fists but doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t have to. Of course they’re not going to say no. He knew that as soon as he knew that this was about protecting the world. That’s why he wanted to vanish with them before they could be told anything. Now it’s already too late.

His eyes slide toward Parker and Hardison, her hand is clenched around Alec’s in a vice grip, she obviously hasn’t liked the sound of this conversation.

To avoid her piercing stare he switches his attention to Hardison. Usually, their friend would yelp at the powerful hold of Parker's fingers right about now, and complain about the loss of feeling in his extremities but this time he seems hardly to notice, just absently pats Parker's hand until the muscles of it relax.

And his eyes just stare off into air, moving rapidly from side to side like they do when he's reading code. He looks at once terrified and like a kid in a candy shop, Eliot recognizes the hunger of curiosity blooming inside that brilliant head of his.

For once, Eliot can even guess what’s going through Hardison's brain.

“Will you accompany the people we’re sending for your friends?” O’Neill says from the side of the room.

He looks back to Parker and puts the question in his eyes. He can’t decide to follow the US government’s wishes and involve their retired - read: vacationing, - family members without her input. It’s bad enough that he can’t ask Sophie and Nate themselves.

Parker’s face is as if carved from stone, but finally, she nods back in permission.

Eliot closes his eyes and pulls in a deep breath, centering himself to the new reality. His family _are_ going to involve themselves into a galactic clusterfuck, and Eliot is going to have to come up with a way to make sure they all survive it - he eyes Hardison - and don’t lose their hacker to the toys.

“I’ll come with you,” Eliot says to the two generals. It’s better if he’s there anyway, going by themselves there’d be a good chance that the poor soldiers would just spend the day carrying bags of Sophie’s shoes while she and Nate vanished into thin air at one of the shops.

Carter nods and then turns back to face Parker and Alec.

“My assistant is going to read you into the program. It’s the basics, we’ll give you everything else you might need after the full debrief of why you’re here.” The general says with a slight catch in her voice and waves toward the dark haired woman who stands straight and gestures for his friends to take their seats at the table.

Hardison seems to finally come out of his head to eye the stack of files waiting for them. “Paper again? Really?”

“Usually we’d be giving you tablets for this Mr. Hardison, but somehow I feel this would not be a prudent choice under the circumstances.” General Carter answers, amusement clear in her voice.

Hardison shrugs, easily conveying that it was worth a shot.

Then he looks at Eliot, a struggle taking place on his face.

“Just FYI, you and I are going to be sharing some _words_ , my man. I think we need a new addendum to ‘You don’t con your own crew’ something along the lines of ‘Friends don’t hide aliens from friends’.” Then he steps forward to grasp Eliot’s forearm and pulls closer, placing their foreheads almost together to stare into Eliot’s eyes in reflection of a moment from five years back, when Eliot needed Alec to stay in play to stop the terrorist attack. “And you better listen to Parker. None of us is dying here, _none_ of us.”

His partners know him too well it seems. He nods to them both as he steps back, but doesn’t vocalize the promise now either. He hates lying to his team.

“Stay safe.” He says instead and then follows generals Carter and O’Neill through the door, leaving Parker and Hardison behind him.

And he knows Carter is right, her people would lie down their lives for his partners before letting harm come to them. They might even be the most well-protected people in the mountain right now, - maybe more so than even the two generals, - he wasn’t wrong in categorizing them all as civilians after all. And no one who works here would let anything bring injury to even a tiny part of the Earth’s population, every single one of them would die first.

And if they really are this vital to whatever mission they’re here for, then that would just be further incentive to their oaths.

Still, though he knows he can trust the SGC personnel with his life, he has before, and it’s been well earned. - _‘I can draw the fire, Colonel.’ ‘No Spencer, just buy me some time, I’m almost finished replacing the last crystal.’_

Though he knows he can trust them with the world’s survival - he’s read the reports.

Trusting them with his _family’s_ lives makes something itch at the back of his neck.

—

Parker’s mind is driving a hundred miles per minute.

Accepting aliens isn’t hard. It’s just a detail in a puzzle she didn’t have before but does now, it doesn’t even really affect the larger picture in front of her. Alien people on alien planets don’t distort Parker’s view of human people on a human planet.

No, it’s not aliens that are making Parker feel like she’s in a free fall wearing someone else’s rappelling equipment and without having had time to check it first. What Parker’s stuck on is the reason for their involvement.

Governments don’t like thieves, not ones not in their employ anyway. And certainly not a team of them that habitually take up fake governmental positions and break through ‘pick-an-alphabet-soup’ firewalls when the need strikes - or when Hardison just feels like it.

These people _should_ have tried arresting them. For all of Eliot’s apparent trust in them, the fact they didn’t try still leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

Parker hates missing pieces. The plans she builds are like three-dimensional moving laser grids that she spins through with equal parts skill, planning, and instinct. But to get to the prize on the other side she still needs to have seen all the lines so that she can predict where to bend out of the way in time to not trigger the alarm.

And right now there are lines all around her she can sense but can’t see.

So she puts all her focus into unraveling the woman in front of her for hints.

“In 1928 an archaeologist in Giza excavated a massive buried artifact, the source of which we couldn’t uncover and the power of which we didn’t yet understand.” The woman says in a way that leaves a strong impression of quoting: something practiced about the way she’s speaking and yet also not. Parker can’t quite put her finger on what’s bothering her about it yet. “Eventually we concluded that the mineral it was composed of wasn’t found anywhere on Earth. We also immediately began trying to translate the inscriptions found on the artifact.”

She slides at them a photo of a large ringed object first and then follows it up with a few more pictures containing some closeups that show the symbols. They look like a weird hybrid of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Norse runes but Parker’s stolen enough inscribed priceless artifacts in her life to be able to tell that the origin is neither.

“Eventually we concluded that the object was a gateway, a door that could create a wormhole to a similar gate built somewhere else.” The woman pushes her glasses further up her nose and blinks rapidly, like the prescription isn’t quite right for her.

Maybe it’s something about the slightly over-dramatic way the woman is talking or the professor-y accent which doesn’t quite fit her, but Parker’s fingers start twitching in unrest.

“Wormhole?” Hardison’s head swings up from where he was leaning forward to inspect the photos.

“Yes. A wormhole is a link between two separate points in spacetime-” The woman shifts slightly and there’s a flicker of something different in the way she starts the sentence, like she went from one know-it-all accent into a different know-it-all accent. The answer is scratching at the edge of Parker’s mind.

“I know what a wormhole is,” Hardison says hissing out a breath. “How long have you guys been going to a different planet?”

“Actively? Since 1997. And it’s not ‘planet’ as in singular.” The woman says and smiles, switching back to the way she’s been speaking since sitting down. “This galaxy has a wide network of Stargates scattered upon thousands of inhabited planets. By putting in the right address we can access any one of them.”

Hardison falls back in his chair with a stunned expression.

Parker, on the other hand, finds her focus zeroing in on the woman’s body language: sitting straight, shoulders back. She’d been gesturing with her hands in grand sweeps all the while having talked. All of it looking natural, but not practiced, not like it’s habit.

This woman, who Parker suddenly realizes hasn’t actually introduced herself, is beginning to remind her of Tara the first time they met her when she was playing Miss Carlisle.

“Who are you?” Parker asks.

There’s a beat of silence and then the woman leans forward, with a self-satisfied grin puts her elbows on the table and rests her chin atop her linked hands. The transformation from a proper, straight-laced specialist is impressive and obvious.

“Four and a half minutes. Oh, but you’re _good_.” The woman says with a wink.

“You didn’t answer her question,” Alec says, no surprise in his tone from the change in the woman’s body language either, so he must have seen the inconsistencies too.

“Vala Mal Doran.” She says and extends her hand to them.

Neither Parker nor Alec takes it, but she just shrugs with a widening grin and pulls back.

“That’s an unusual name,” Parker says.

“Not from where I’m from, darling.” Mal Doran immediately answers.

Parker feels her brows furrow at the implication. Beside her, Hardison seems to choke on air.

“But you’re human.” He says and Parker looks at him with slight concern at the strangled pitch his voice comes out in, that only ever happens when he starts panicking. She reaches over to take his hand and ground him back into the present.

For Parker it’s always been the other way around, when she’s the one spiraling the skin to skin contact would just make it worse - for her it’s voice that helps, talking her back from the edge, - but Hardison needs the solid warmth of another’s touch so she says nothing and just squeezes his hand until she sees his breathing evening out.

“I am.” The woman finally says, and Parker finds herself thankful that she waited until Alec was calm, even if it only took a few moments. “But not Tau’ri.”

“That makes no sense,” Hardison argues.

“Only to those who don’t know the history.” Mal Doran says, her eyes moving from Hardison to her and to their clasped hands, obviously reading them as Parker was reading her.

“What is the history then?” Parker asks.

“The history is that for the past ten thousand years in the eyes of the Goa’uld humans have made excellent slaves. And hosts.” Vala says with a certain bitterness that speaks of something personal.

Before Parker can follow up on that the door leading to the hallway opens up and a man around Eliot’s age steps in rubbing his eyes.

“Hey, Vala have you seen my glasses anywhere? I closed my eyes in my office for maybe a minute and-” he cuts off and squints at Mal Doran. “Are you wearing my glasses?”

“Yes, Daniel.” Mal Doran says with a smirk no longer paying her or Alec any attention.

“Vala?” The man says with a frustrated sort of calm.

“Yes, Daniel?” Mal Doran says with feigned innocence.

“ _Why_ are you wearing my glasses?”

“They fit the costume.” She says without any sign of bashfulness, at least none that Parker could see.

“Costu-” The man stops mid-word finally seeming to notice the two other people in the room and clearly uncomfortable with the audience blushes the slightest bit.

“Jack brought our thieves, I wanted to see how quick they’d figure me out. Sam agreed.” Mal Doran explains. Parker doesn’t think she appreciates the use of the possessive.

“Did Sam agree with stealing my glasses too?” He says, his voice an irritated huff.

“Well, she didn’t *dis*agree.” Mal Doran says, her amused grin never wavering.

“Of course she didn’t.” The man says with a glare and then goes quiet, waiting. Mal Doran just keeps looking at him through the lenses of the stolen glasses.

“Vala!” He finally snaps and Hardison coughs into his hand to hide his snicker.

“Yes, Daniel?”

“Give me back my glasses, please!” He says, frustration apparently boiling over.

“Of course, Daniel.” Mal Doran says and removes the glasses, handing them over with clear relish. If they’d have met this woman under different circumstances she’d definitely introduce her to Tara, she thinks they’d get along like a house on fire.

Maybe literally. Parker would enjoy being there to see that actually.

The man snatches the glasses, puts them on with one smooth movement and finally turns to them.

“It’s a pleasure meeting you. I’m Doctor Daniel Jackson.”

“What kind of doctor?” Is Parker’s immediate question, she doesn’t like doctors, in her experience, they like to poke things too much.

“Linguistics and archaeology.”

—

“So, what do you think?” Jack asks Sam after they’re done watching the recorded footage showing the beginning of the briefing Vala started out giving the two people before Daniel showed up and took over.

She sighs, they did catch on to Vala’s act quickly, but that doesn’t really prove they’re right for the mission as far as Carter’s concerned.

And then there’s the fact that she just doesn’t like this. She doesn’t like leaving the fate of the world up to a team of criminals, but Walter’s files once he started really digging into them more deeply were in fact rather convincing.

Apparently, these are the guys who were behind the reveals of corruption and the arrests of at least three high-ranking members of NID. Ones that SGC had missed during the cleanups.

And that didn’t even begin to touch on some other events where this crew’s hands were apparently felt.

Sam can’t condone the tools these people use in the name of justice, but she can’t fault them either. And she can’t argue the results.

“I think Vala’s right, they’re our best shot.” As much as she _doesn’t like it_. “But if anything happens to them we’ll be responsible for the deaths of four civilians. Five if we count Spencer.”

“Present company excluded a lot of our big brains are civilians,” Jack says but she can see he’s no more happy about this than she is.

“You know that’s different, we don’t send the scientists into enemy territory without an on the ground military backup. The only backup these people might end up having is Eliot Spencer, and if we’re very lucky, someone in a cloaked ship in nearby orbit.”

“But we need them,” Jack says.

“But we need them,” Sam agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting the epilogue tomorrow morning (so depending on where you live it might just be in the very late evening tonight).
> 
> I know this wasn't the longest story but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Letting me know which parts you liked (or didn't) would be nice too (and helpful for any potential future fics I write).
> 
> Thanks for reading, and have a nice day everyone :)


	4. Epilogue: On a Nova Lucian Alliance ship somewhere  in Milky Way galaxy

She stands inside a cage made up of a flimsy force field, waiting. It won’t be long now.

She'd found it, the home galaxy of the Atlantians.

No more hunger, no more following the orders of The Traitor. A whole galaxy's worth of humans who are not inoculated against them almost within her grasp. Finally, in so long there will be no need to decide between starvation, death or changing the very chemistry of their bodies.

She will place her people back where they have always belonged, at the pinnacle of the food chain.

And an armada full of fools who believe that they are holding her against her will be the first meal. Oh, the very idea that they think they are going to sell her and she'll become their weapon is hilarious.

No, this is exactly where she wishes to be and she will lead her people right to them.

But not yet.

No, there is still one more thing she needs to learn before she can escape. The location of Earth.

The Wraith Queen smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, and here's the complicated bit. I am aware that this story is shorter than you would like, it's shorter than I would like, but though there are fanfic writers who can create whole epics and I love and adore them as much as all of you, I'm simply not one of them myself.
> 
> I like getting into the heads of characters to see how they'd react in a particular set of circumstances. In this story that was largely about how Parker and Hradison would react to finding out about aliens and how Eliot would react to his team finding out about them and getting involved. And I wanted to imagine where SG-1 would have ended up 10 years later.
> 
> In this story I've done both those things, and hopefully done them well enough that you enjoyed it.
> 
> That being SAID I'm considering to write a follow-up story that would take place during the period where the SGC characters are getting these white-hat thieves ready for the mission. And because I spent less time than I'd have liked to in the heads of Stargate people, that story would be much more from their POV (though probably not exclusively so).
> 
> But I'll do it the same way I did here (which is to say I'll write it all before starting to post), and it's not likely to be any longer than this story was (because believe me, me writing epics is just a bad idea that will result in me never updating, and going off to hide somewhere for a few months in guilt).
> 
> Now for the Wraith Queen. Don't tell me you don't see what a ticking time-bomb that has always been ;)


End file.
